Connecticut Family Of Six, Houston Sisters Among Dead In Nigerian Crash

Monday, before a storm blew through, rescuers and firefighters searched through the crash site in Lagos.

Emmanuel Arewa
/ AFP/Getty Images

"A torrential downpour and strong winds prevented emergency crews from returning Tuesday morning to a devastated neighborhood where a commercial airliner crashed, killing all 153 people aboard the plane and an undetermined number of people on the ground," The Associated Press reports from Lagos.

The wire service adds that:

"Charred metal from the plane, rubble from destroyed buildings, thick mud and standing water await the emergency workers. A three-story apartment building at the site struck by the nose of the MD-83 aircraft began shaking Monday as rescuers dug through debris, and they are afraid it might collapse.

" 'It's going to be messy,' said Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency."

Among those killed, the Hartford Courant writes, were six members of a Connecticut family — a couple and their four small children — who were on their way to a wedding. They're identified as "Maimuna Anyene of Elmwood, and her husband, Onyeke, of Nigeria. ... Flying with them were their four children: Noah, 5 months; Kaiyen and Kaima, 1-year-old twins; and Kamsi, 3, according to the children's godmother, Mari Sifo."

Also killed: "two ambitious sisters from the Houston area," according to the Houston Chronicle. The newspaper says Josephine and Jennifer Onita, of Missouri City, Texas, were also in Nigeria for a wedding.